Lotus Europa Community
Lotus Europa Forums => The Paddock => Topic started by: StephenH on Thursday,June 08, 2017, 11:47:06 PM
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Maybe data logging as a performance tool is a touchy subject for 'historic' cars, but unless it is banned by class competition rules I don't see why you wouldn't consider using data to improve your performance.
In car video is so common now that almost every car seems to have a camera in place and that is also a form of data logging.
A few years ago I won a VBox Sport as a door prize and have used it various times to try and understand what I was doing right or wrong (as it is generally the driver that gives the most potential gain).
Last weekend I was doing a Super Sprint on a circuit I had never driven 4 wheels on (but had ridden 2 wheels on).
Had the VBox in the car and my GongProng ''Clone' HD camera recording away.
As there was opportunity for plenty of laps I had a lot more data and video than I normally get from a Hillclimb or Sprint.
So a bit of investigation and I have sussed out the tools to import non-VBox video into my VBox data analysis software.
Early days but the ability to compare different laps at the same point of track in both data and video form together seems a good way to pick up a few tenths.
In this case I was aware of 2 points in particular where I could gain time, but understanding what was actually working wasn't that clear.
Looking at the Combined-G data across a number of laps along with the video frames I can see additional points where I am not getting the most out of the tyres when coming off the brakes and into the turns.
I'm going to go back through some historical data where I have it before events in future and try to have a plan before I even get to the track.
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Data is nice, the real expertise is knowing how to interpret it. Way beyond my pay grade.
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I have a head start on the technology and some of the analysis as data acquisition and logging used to be how I made my living.
I still work in telemetry but of a very different sort.
But as the man says; data is nice...... I'll add that you need the particular domain knowledge to turn it into something really valuable.
You can always interpret it, but are you using the right language :)
What I find nice about this current setup is that it is relatively cheap and cheerful, but also practical for my purpose.
I make a few notes after each run generally and reading back through these while looking at the actual data and video is either supporting my 'feel' or giving me a clue.
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It looks far from "cheap'n'cheerful" to me as a layman. I'd have said it looks very professionally executed. If you have the ability to record things, even just a video of a specific lap/run, then I can't see why you wouldn't do so. Even watching split screen laps would highlight areas where you'd gone faster previously but for some reason held back the next time around.
When I hear of people using PS4/XBox to learn circuits, I'd say you're spot on with your methods. I'm going to be a lurker on this topic because I can't add anything useful, but I shall look forward to seeing how you get on with it.
Brian